Geology topics

Richard Roth

Publications and source records attributed to Richard Roth.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2025

Modeling interconnected minerals markets with multicommodity supply curves: Examining the copper-cobalt-nickel system

Demand for many of the metals used in the energy transition is expected to grow rapidly. Many of these are by-products, often considered critical because their production responds weakly to prices and is instead tied to the economics of the host mineral. We present a model of prices and production for jointly produced commodities that accounts for interconnectivity between host and by-product markets at the mine level. We demonstrate this method using the copper–cobalt–nickel system, in which approximately 99% of cobalt is a by-product of copper or nickel mining. Our results show that the model more accurately captures the economic benefits of diversified mine outputs than previous approaches. Furthermore, changes in demand drivers for any two commodities produce non-linear effects on production and price. We challenge the prior best-practice assumption that cobalt cannot impact the copper or nickel markets. Recognizing the importance of both copper and cobalt for future electrification, we emphasize that incentivizing the copper industry to reduce cobalt supply risks could inadvertently undermine copper supply.

Nature Communications↗

USGS2024

Understanding key mineral supply chain dynamics using economics-informed material flow analysis and Bayesian optimization

The low-carbon energy transition requires significant increases in production for many mineral commodities. Understanding demand, technological requirements, and prices associated with this production increase requires understanding the supply chain dynamics of many minerals simultaneously, and via a consistent framework. A generalized economics-informed material flow method, global materials modeling using Bayesian optimization, captures the market dynamics of key mineral commodities. The method relies only on a limited set of widely available historical data as input, enabling quantification of economic relationships (elasticities) for supply chain components where data are sparse, and relationships cannot be obtained via traditional statistical approaches. Building upon established material flow analysis (MFA) and economic modeling techniques, Bayesian optimization was applied to fit an economics-informed MFA model to global historical demand, supply, and price for aluminum, copper, gold, lead, nickel, silver, iron, tin, and zinc. This approach enables estimates for the evolution of ore grades, mine costs, refining charges, sector-specific demand, and scrap collection for each commodity. Economic relationships were quantified and compared with a database compiled from the literature, including 1333 values from 213 analyses across 65 publications. Discrepancies in methods and limited coverage make use of these parameters in modeling efforts difficult. This work provides a single, homogeneous, probabilistic approach to identifying economic relationships across mineral supply chains, with uncertainty quantification, a literature database for comparison, and a modeling framework in which to use them. This article met the requirements for a Gold-Gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges .

Journal of Industrial Ecology↗

USGS2021

Changes in seabed mining

Chapter 23 of the First World Ocean Assessment (WOA I) focused on marine mining, and particularly on established extractive industries, which are predominantly confined to near-shore areas, where shallow-water, near-shore aggregate and placer deposits, and somewhat deeper water phosphate deposits are found (United Nations, 2017a). At the time of publication, there were no commercially developed deep-water seabed mining (DSM) deposits but an assessment of mining leases and exploration activity was included. Since WOA I, the number of deep-water (depths greater than 200 m below the ocean surface) seabed exploration licenses has increased both within national jurisdictions of coastal, island and archipelagic States, and beyond in the Area (the seabed, ocean floor and subsoil thereof beyond the limits of national jurisdiction) under the administration of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). For the first time, in 2017 deep-water seabed test-mining was carried out by Japan at a water depth of 1,600 m within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) (METI, 2017). The update in the present Chapter will focus on the nascent deep-water seabed mining industry and mineral deposits. Hereafter, we use seabed for deep-water seabed. Environmental issues focused on impacts from dredging activities and a list of references for some mining operations were provided. However, WOA I could not provide an environmental baseline for DSM and considered that environmental, social and economic aspects were often not adequately understood with available data. Data on potential environmental impacts are still scarce and can differ greatly between mineral extraction from near-shore and seabed mining sites. Information on economic benefits, and to some extent social impacts, of mining is becoming progressively more accessible due to several initiatives promoting an increase in transparency of extractive industries. In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by all United Nations Member States. It includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be addressed on the basis of a global partnership. DSM activities may have implications for the achievement of SDGs 1, 5, 7–10, 12–14, and 17.

Book chapter↗